


the morrow will heal the night

by Aisalynn



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light Angst, One Shot, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, spoilers for s8e03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 23:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18679324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisalynn/pseuds/Aisalynn
Summary: “My Lord.” Her voice was a tired rasp, free of inflection.“My Lady.” He began to pick his way across the room, side stepping rubble and fallen beams. “You should be in your rooms, trying to sleep. It’s been a long night.” It was hard to believe that was all it had been.One night.





	the morrow will heal the night

**Author's Note:**

> This kinda got out of hand and became 2000+ words of Tyrion and Sansa talking. Just because I am greedy and they have so much history to hash out, so as wonderful as the crypt scene was, I wanted more.

When Tyrion found her she was standing in the ruins of the Broken Tower. She was in front of the window, arms braced against the ledge, the faint light from the long awaited dawn alighting her features and making her hair--which had loosened from its formal style during the struggle for their lives in the crypt--seem like pale fire against her skin. Tyrion paused in the doorway at the sight, immediately regretting the interruption of her solitude. He inhaled sharply and took a step back--intending to go back down--but it was too late. At the sound of his breath Sansa turned around, eyes catching his.

“My Lord.” Her voice was a tired rasp, free of inflection.

“My Lady.” He began to pick his way across the room, side stepping rubble and fallen beams. “You should be in your rooms, trying to sleep. It’s been a long night.” It was hard to believe that was all it had been.

One night.

She turned back to the window when he reached her side, making room for him to join her at the ledge. “I can’t.” The words were sharp, voice tight with repressed emotion. “They got inside the Great Keep and in my rooms. They were my mother and father’s rooms and now there’s--” she cut herself off, the carefully blank expression she had been wearing since he arrived fracturing. He watched as she swallowed thickly, breathing in slowly in order to regain control. “This was the only place that seemed to be free of them.”  

He didn’t know what to say to that. The early morning light, as grateful as everyone was to see it, only made the travesty the battle had made of her home more apparent. The dead covered Winterfell like a blanket. When the doors of the crypt had finally opened they were piled five deep on the stairs leading out, their soldiers now indistinguishable from the Night King’s. A narrow walkway had to be made in order for them to climb up and the steps were slick with blood and rot. Even now, as they looked out the window of the tower and down at the battlements you could see them, and beyond the walls through the thick smoke that still rose from the trench the snow looked black with blood.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway,” she muttered.

“No,” he sighed. “Neither would I.” He turned away from the bleak view, leaning his right shoulder against the ledge. His eyes caught on her hands, still on the worn stone. Inside the crypt they had been gloved, and his lips had brushed cool leather when he kissed the back of her hand, so sure that their last moments were upon them. By the time the dead had dropped to the ground, both of their hands were covered in grime and death, their gloves ruined.

Her hands looked so defenseless now, thin fingers reddened from the cold. Fragile. He wanted to extend his own hand, cover those fingers with his own. In King’s Landing it had been the one act of comfort he had been allowed. The only way he could express his concern for her, his regret at what she had been through, always wary of the watchful eyes of his family’s spies. Hours ago it had been their only form of communication: a desperate, sorrowful grasp as death clawed at their backs.

But that was hours ago, and they did not die. Now...

_The dragon queen. Your divided loyalties would become a problem._

Now his touch would be unwelcome.

As if reading his thoughts she turned to him, one eyebrow raised in question. “Shouldn’t you be with your Queen?”

Once free of the tunnel leading to the crypt he had rushed to find Daenerys, fearing what had happened to her while he was locked away beneath the ground. They had learned the hard way that even dragons were not a sure defense against the Night King, after all. He did find her, alive and for the most part, unharmed. But the cost of her well being was high, and in the end he was forced to leave her alone with her grief.

“Right now my presence would only be an intrusion,” he explained.

Sansa nodded, a pained expression on her face, and Tyrion was abruptly reminded that his Queen wasn’t the only one who had suffered a personal loss that night. The Greyjoy boy, he remembered, was like a brother to Sansa. Again, the thought crossed his mind that he should leave, but he couldn’t force himself to move. Instead he stayed, and like picking at a scab he said, “You still don’t like her, do you?”

He regretted the question as soon as it left his lips. Her expression snapped closed, and an eerily familiar aloofness took over her features. He knew where she learned that particular trick from--and he hated it.

“It’s not about liking. It’s about protecting my people.”

“The dragon queen--as you call her--just sacrificed a lot to protect your people.” He gestured to the devastation outside. “The Dothraki, more than half of the Unsullied, _Ser Jorah…_ How can you distrust her now?”

“I trust that our interests were aligned. She cannot rule over a kingdom of the dead.”

“And now that the dead are defeated?”

“Now…” she sighed, staring past him to the rubble that surrounded them in the tower. “My brother Robb swore we would never be controlled by a Southern ruler again. He died for that. My _mother_ died for that. As did my youngest brother. And my father before all of them, because the whim of a Southern King took him from the North, from his home.”

“And yet, your brother, your _chosen King_ , believes in Daenerys enough to bend the knee to her.”

She said nothing, but her lips tightened, and he watched as the hands he had been longing to touch curled into fists at her side.

“You cannot be like my sister, you know.” He said gently. “You cannot look at every alliance and see a threat.”

At his words her fists relaxed and she turned back to him, eyes appraising him for a long moment. “Cersei might not be the worst teacher to learn from. After all, she’s still here.”

“Yes. Well. So are we.”

The edges of her lips curled up into the slightest of smiles. “Yes. So are we.”

He felt his own lips lift involuntarily into a smile to match hers as he thought about just how different their lives were from when they were forced to play husband and wife in the Red Keep. He knew, without having to ask, that her thoughts were along the same lines.

The moment of understanding was interrupted by a loud screech as one of the dragons flew overhead. Tyrion glanced around nervously as the beat of its wings shook the tower, causing several more stones slide down from the gaping hole on the opposite side of where they were. When he looked back at Sansa her face was solemn once more.

His mind sought desperately for something to break that solemnity. “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about how to feed the massive army we saddled you with anymore."

It was a poor joke, and he waited for the sharp rejoinder about his insensitivity in his timing, but what came out of Sansa’s mouth was a flatly spoken, “Most of the grain stores caught on fire anyway.”

There was a beat of silence between them.

Then, unable to help himself, Tyrion snorted. Then chuckled. Then he was outright laughing. Across from him Sansa joined in, covering her mouth with one ungloved hand as she did.

It wasn’t funny. It was, in fact, horrible. But here they were, almost doubled over in hysterics, a fresh wave of laughter taking over them every time they caught each other’s gaze through tear filled eyes.

They were both still here.

Tyrion felt giddy that they were even alive to worry about such things as how to feed what was left of their tired army.

Finally the laughter died down, leaving them gasping as they tried to catch their breath. He watched as Sansa wiped at the tears on her face and stumbled over to a fallen beam. Still chuckling a little, she collapsed down on it with a huff.

He made a move to the door, intending to finally take his leave of her but her voice stopped him.

“Tyrion.”

He turned back around, eyebrows raised in question.

She moved the fabric of her skirt aside, clearing space beside her on the beam. “Come sit with me.”

Surprised, he moved to do just that, slowly settling into the spot she indicated. It was a tight fit. Most of the wood of the beam had rotted away, leaving very little that could hold even his weight, but Sansa didn’t seem to mind as they sat there in contemplative silence, his arm brushing lightly against hers.

“This tower was at one time my only hope,” she said softly. Her gaze was once again turned to the sole window in the room. “When I was--when Ramsay--” She stopped. Took a breath. “Lady Brienne sent word that if I needed help all I had to do was light a candle in this window and she would come.”

“Ser Brienne now,” he murmured, and was rewarded with a small smile flashing across Sansa’s face. “I never knew Ramsay Bolton,” he said tentatively, “but having had the dubious honor of meeting his father I imagine you lit that candle.”

“Yes,” she intoned lowly. “I lit it.”

Tyrion had heard stories about Roose Bolton’s bastard over the years. When he was legitimized and put in control of Winterfell Varys’ little birds had brought back even better information. Still, he could only imagine the type of cruelty Sansa had faced as his wife, the horrors she had to endure. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Her eyes didn’t leave the window. “When we were married in King’s Landing, I told myself it didn’t count. We never lay together as man and wife so it wasn’t real.”

He had had similar thoughts himself at the time. “You were right about that.”

“At my lowest,” she continued, the slight tilt of her head the only acknowledgement of his statement, “it became a comfort to think that Ramsay didn’t count, because I was already married.”

“And now you have come to the proper conclusion that neither one counted,” he concluded with a wry smile.

She glanced down at him from the corner of her eye, meeting his smile with her own. Then it faded. She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “When I was a girl all I wanted was to marry a prince or a brave lord. Like in the _songs_ ,” she drawled out bitterly. “I was foolish.” She let out a small sigh, her shoulders tight even as she forced her hands to relax. “I don’t want that anymore.”

“I do,” Tyrion said quietly, after a moment. Sansa turned to him in surprise. “My siblings risked everything for it when Cersei was married to Robert Baratheon. My Queen thought she would never love anyone after her Dothraki husband until she met your esteemed brother. Even Joffrey, vicious little monster that he was, fell prey to Margaery Tyrell’s charms because he wanted to believe that she wanted him. Everyone wants to love and be loved in some form or another, to feel we are wholly understood by someone else.” He gave her a self deprecating smile. “It’s why I rushed into my first, disastrous marriage. And why I still want another one.”

He leaned forward, and this time he did reach out, finally covering those cold fingers with his own in order to ensure he had her attention. “And if you ever decide you do want it again,” he told her softly, “it won’t be because you are foolish, or naive. Or at least not anymore than the rest of the poor bastards of the world, searching for the very same thing.” He held her gaze for a long moment, until she nodded. Satisfied, he leaned back, slipping his fingers from hers.

He was surprised when Sansa stopped him, turning her palm against his and catching his fingers, holding on to them. “Perhaps we both will find it someday, our song worthy match.”

Tyrion dragged his eyes from their clasped hands to look up at her. Sansa’s face was as open to him as it was hours ago in the crypts, a hopeful expression breaking across her features like the dawn.

“Perhaps we will,” he agreed. He looked past her to the window that had held her attention so raptly before. The morning light was bright now, and despite the smoke still curling up from the battlefield, he could tell that the sky was clear and blue. “After all, we survived the Long Night. Our lives hold nothing but possibilities now.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
